Walter Howe

By the death of Walter Howe the community lost a faithful public servant, the Century a most valuable member, and his associates a cherished friend. He filled important offices in the State to the complete satisfaction of those who intrusted him with them, and won the approval of his fellow citizens by his ability and integrity in the discharge of their duties. He served the Century ably in the difficult and responsible positions to which he was called, and gained the approval of his fellow-members. To his friends he was a joyous, generous-hearted, companionable man, whom they always welcomed in their circle and who trusted him in any capacity without reserve.

His death came all too soon when we think of the career that lay before him; but if we consider the true measure of the completeness of a human life, which is the fullness of its value to the commonwealth, surely this life so untimely closed, illustrating as it did a high ideal of duty, a faithful devotion to it, and the trust of his fellowmen deserved and won, filled the measure of public service and of patriotic devotion as fully as if he had rounded the psalmist’s term of human existence up to the limit, beyond which all is vanity, and so we may apply to him and to his life the words of Horace:

“Fortis et in se ipso teres atque rotundus.”

Henry E. Howland
1891 Century Association Yearbook